Monthly Archives: September 2012

Kitchen Tables

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Some of the best moments of my life have taken place with a mug of coffee or tea in my hand and my elbows propped on a kitchen table. The table I remember most vividly from childhood is my grandmother’s. I think I was twenty-one before I ever saw it without some kind of table cloth on it, but I remember that it seemed huge, even when the expansion leaves weren’t in place, and that no matter the number of people who showed up, there was never “not enough room.”

DrinkingCoffee400 from iStockPhoto.com

Summers of my childhood included so many gatherings around that table – breakfast served by my grandfather, who made the perfect poached eggs, the best cream of wheat, and used to sing “Sweet Adeline” while he cooked. Afternoons were punctuated by my grandmother’s need for “a little something,” often an Entenmann’s coffee cake, but sometimes just a Stella D’oro anisette toast cookie (like a sponge biscotti, laced with anise). That’s when cousins would drop by – my grandmother’s niece Ginny, born 31 years before me on the same day (she called me her birthday girl til the day she died), or her daughter, my cousin Cathy, who is the closest thing I ever had to an older sister.

Evenings would involve grilled burgers, slices of Jersey tomatoes, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes wrapped in foil. Sometimes there would be cousins, sometimes the friends who are really non-biological family – they know who they are. Conversation would rise and fall, kids would share the bench from the foyer, jammed into the far corner of the room, at the curve of the table, or sit on the piano stool (and be forbidden to spin it, though we all wanted to).

But that was years ago.

This morning, the kitchen table around which people gathered was mine, and instead of cousins and friends who’ve known me since before I was born, it was newer friends – two women who are part of my chosen family here in Texas, and one of their mothers. I served strong Caribou Obsidian blend coffee, and homemade banana nut bread and we spent a pleasant morning talking and laughing.

At one point, early in the visit, one of my friends said, “Sitting here at this table with a cup of coffee is like coming home.”

It’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid.

Sweet and Spicy

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Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte

For many people, the fall season begins on the day after Labor Day. Growing up, it was when fall began for me, because it’s when school resumed after summer vacation. For the last eight years, however, Fuzzy and I have lived in Texas, where temperatures are still summer-hot at least mid-way through the month.

Nevertheless, today is when the Pumpkin Spice Latte returned to Starbucks, and so, even though the high temperature in my city was 104 today, we went to Starbucks after a lovely dinner at our favorite Asian bistro and a quick jaunt to the grocery store. (We were out of cheese and toothpaste. It was dire.)

My local Starbucks has gained a new barista this summer, not an unusual occurrence at a coffee shop, but this one is particularly awesome. Her name is Katherine (or some variant spelling of that name, but, to quote Anne Shirley, and with no disrespect meant to certain friends or relatives, “Katherine spelt with a K is so much more alluring than Catherine with a C”). She wears rainbow spikes in her ear lobes, which should be weird but somehow hers are both cool and tasteful. She has a lovely speaking voice (no Texas accent so I’m guessing she’s a student at one of the local colleges) and a great personality.

And tonight, she introduced me to a new drink customization.

Our conversation went like this:

“Hi, it’s good to see you!” Katherine greeted me.

“Thanks! I saw the sign that Pumpkin Spice Lattes were back when I was at Tom Thumb, but the kiosk closes at seven, and while they’re lovely people, they’re excruciatingly slow.” I said.

“The salted caramel mocha is back too, you know,” she said with a seductive tone in her voice.

“I know,” I said conspiratorially, “but it’s too hot for the salted caramel mocha. It is not, however, too hot for a grande Pumpkin Spice Latte.”

“Good point,” she agreed, beginning to mark my drink request onto the appropriately sized cardboard cup. Then she paused. “You know what I’ve been doing?” she asked.

“No,” I said, leaning over the counter. “Tell me!”

“I’ve been mixing chai with the Pumpkin Spice Latte. You’re a fan of chai, aren’t you.”

I confirmed that I was, in fact, a chai fan, and that I’d love to try her concoction, and so instead of a standard PSL, I walked out with a grande PSL enhanced by two pumps of chai.

It was sweet and spicy, and had a hint of tea underneath the coffee, and was a bit darker in tone than a standard PSL.

Katherine says the only thing better, in her opinion, is mixing chai with the Gingerbread Lattes when they come out in winter.

I can’t wait to find out.

Honor Labor

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It’s Labor Day, and while for many of us all that means is an extended weekend, there are some people who still have to go to work today. Even though there are things Fuzzy and I need from the grocery store, I have a personal issue with frequenting any retail establishment on Labor Day (or really, on any national holiday) because I believe doing so merely encourages companies to extend work hours. Yes, our society has essentially become a 24/7 one, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any of us to take a break from time to time.

In any case, Labor Day wouldn’t exist without labor unions, and while it’s debatable whether or not they still serve a purpose in our era, the fact remains that they’ve done a lot of good, and not just for workers. Here are five things you should remember about Labor Day, taken from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee blog:

The Weekend: The ultra-right Mises Institute notes that in the relatively labor union-free year of 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now. In response to this, in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for workers to spend time with their families and engage in other leisurely activities.

Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: As unions grew in numbers in the 1930s and 40s, there was a rapid expansion of employers offering their employees health care. As Health Affairs notes, “In industries dominated by a few giant firms, unions used their “countervailing power” to make the firms share some of their potential profits with workers in the form of high wages and generous health insurance benefits.”

Ending Child Labor: The first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.

The Family and Medical Leave Act: Labor unions as part of the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

Keeping Income Inequality In Check: As research from the Center for American Progress has shown, the middle class had its largest share of national income at exactly the same time that union membership was highest in the United States. In 1967, the middle class had approximately 53 percent of the national income, while 27 percent of workers belong to a union. By 2007, the middle class’s share of national income dropped to around 46 percent with a union membership rate of around 11 percent.

Unconscious Mutterings – Week #501

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I thought I’d do Unconscious Mutterings on the actual day they’re posted this week, instead of midway through. New month, and all. Also? I’m doing them in honor of my teen years, when Levi’s 501s where the thing. After all, it’s week 501.

I say… And you think…?

  1. Tenure :: track
  2. Baptism ::-al font
  3. Holders :: corn
  4. Irritation :: stupid people
  5. Academics :: cloistered
  6. Mug :: shot
  7. Charge :: Cash or…?
  8. Percent :: -ile
  9. Clears :: security
  10. Selfless :: devotion

September Days

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september-in-the-park-500-by-JohnnyBerg-stockxhcng

And so it is September.

For me, this month is always a bit odd. It’s technically still summer for another three weeks, but after this weekend, most of use will be out of our more relaxed summer mindset, even if we aren’t going back to school, or sending children there.

Here in Texas, the weather in September generally remains at full-on summer temperature at least through the middle of the month, which makes the autumn season seem to take forever to arrive, and makes it seem too short when it actually does, and yet, even though we haven’t yet arrived at the changing of official seasons, even though we’re still seeing temperatures peaking around the 100 mark during the day, there are hints of fall in the air.

The leaves are not as vivid a green as they were even a week ago, and there’s a hint of bite under those hot temperatures. That bite is so subtle that you can’t feel it unless you’re actively seeking it out, but it’s there, underneath your top layers of consciousness. 100 degrees in September feels ever so slightly cooler than 100 degrees in August.

And then there’s the light. As early as my birthday (August 17) I start noticing that the summer light is waning. I don’t mean the time of sunset – we all know the days are slowly shrinking as we approach the autumnal equinox – I mean the actual daylight. Somehow, once we’ve passed the mid-point of August, and all the more when we flip the calendar page to September, daylight seems a fraction less bright, the angle of the sun having changed just a bit.

September days, then, are warmed by thin sunlight, colored by fading leaves, and occupy a space that isn’t quite summer, but isn’t exactly autumn, either.

“By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer.”
~ Helen Hunt Jackson